Monday, November 30, 2009

It must be an actual body of water, not a puddle, precipitation, or in a bottle.

You must declare it to win. Thinking about doesn't count.

To declare you must say this exact phrase: "I see the water!" Nothing more and nothing less. Saying "What is 'I see the water?'" is the only exception. You won't get extra points, but you may get kudos.

If you did not see the water, you may grumble.

At the end of the day, the person who saw the water the most gets bragging rights and may gloat and/or write a haiku about it and post it on Facebook.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Today in Geometry, we're starting a new unit. When we get to a new unit, I always have to sigh with relief. Starting a new unit is like starting afresh but still using the most important stuff from last unit. I actually think I did pretty well in the last unit test, so I'm super excited about that. So the way things go in Mr. Spencer's is:

Talk about the homework we just turned in.

Talk a little about what we're going to learn today

Hand out the packets for the chapter we're working on that day

Tell us the vocab words and maybe explain them if we don't quite understand

Tell us what goes in the blanks for the notes. The packet already has the notes in them with blanks we have to fill in.

Then we have the rest of the block to sit around and do the work.

So today we went through the notes pretty quick and it all made sense. He told us we could move and work with each other to do our work. He said he knows some people will finish it all today. So I get to work with optimism, and it was really easy! I worked with my friend who's kind of a slacker and does her work at home, so I kind of made it into a game so, explaining everything out loud what I was doing, and getting so excited about getting the answer. My friend was just kind of annoyed since I'm like never peppy at school, but today in Geometry I was like a firecracker, and soon I was finished with it. I just made it seem like I was genuinely excited to do math, so then I felt genuinely excited. Usually math is my worst enemy but today it was like my best friend. It's all in the mind I guess.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

For a lab in Science, we had to bring in 12 rocks in an egg carton. Me, leaving it to the last minute, was trying to think of ways to get rocks last night with it being cold and dark outside. The solution: my room. I found lots of pretty rocks that I've collected on various trips, and kept them in random places in my room. Picking the prettiest of the prettiest, I put them in an egg carton and got prepared for bed. The next day (today), Ms. Robinett was explaining the stations, like finding volume, weight, size, and streak. She was explaining some, like the acid test, the magnet test, and looking it over with a magnifying glass. She said for the magnet test that if it's magnetic, then it's magnetite, except for that's very rare. Guess who found out she brought magnetite!

When I asked Ms. Robinett again what kind of rock is magnetic, she said magnetite and asked if I had it. I was so excited! One of my friends asked where I found it, and I said my room. Ms. Robinett laughed and said I found it under my bed with my asteroids. One of my friends who has the same science teacher after me said that Ms. Robinett told them about a student having magnetite for the first time in 20 years.